A 21st-century organization with a structural model designed for the 20th-century limits how well it can perform and creates massive unnecessary and unproductive complexity that frustrates employees and wastes money. It is the leader’s responsibility to redesign an organization that takes advantage of today’s sources of wealth creation; and, it isn’t easy. By redesigning an organization to marshal the ‘mind-power’ of its workforce and tap into its talents, knowledge, relationships, and skills, organizations help their people undertake more rewarding, productive work and create sources of new wealth and opportunity (Bryan, et..al, 2007).
It is, therefore, the interaction between leader and employee and how the interaction transpires that affects organizational sustainability and competitiveness. Debbie Bigelow (2007) challenges leaders to recognize the power of business’ most valuable asset: people. Her model emphasizes relationship and the importance of acknowledging people as intellectual assets rather than the so-called “hard” assets of the Industrial Age.
Microsoft, for instance, emphasizes the importance of Bigelow’s assertion in their on-line People-Ready publication dated September 16, 2007.
“People drive business success. Human imagination creates the ideas that move business forward. Human conversations and human effort shape those ideas into products and services for the market. The unique ability of people to listen, respond, persuade, and think for themselves enables companies to sell effectively, serve their customers, and work together with their business partners in rich, satisfying ways that create lasting, high-value relationships.”
Leaders must actively recognize people as the most critical resource in any organization and create a common culture that aligns employees to a common goal while retaining the flexibility to alter its organizational design to meet the demands of a changing business environment (Overholt et.al, no date).
Facing Change
Leaders who wish to benefit from more of the opportunities available to them now and in the future understand change is occurring and change is necessary. “You have a choice” is a statement most have heard many times. W. Edwards Deming once stated, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” Deming’s statement is even more applicable today. Change is not an option if organizations want to survive. Strategic change is essential for organizations to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Leaders are the organization’s design change agents. They are responsible for translating theory into practice.
In some instances, organizational structure is confused with organizational design. Structure refers to the location of the decision-making power while design refers to the creation of roles, processes, and formal reporting relationships within an organization. Galbraith writes that design is a continuous process, not a single event, which involves a sequence of decisions. These decisions include; strategy, structure, key processes, key people, roles and responsibilities, information systems, performance measures and rewards, training and development, and career paths (Galbraith, 2002).
Taking design theory and incorporating it into an organization is a ‘delicate dance/’ Change is typically disruptive, causes stress, evokes skepticism, can result in chronic instability, and distract management (Nadler et.al, 1997). The larger and more complex an organization, the more potential there is for obstreperous behavior and chaos. As such, if people are the organization’s most valuable resource, it is incumbent upon leaders to incorporate transition management principles to minimize potential turmoil.
Managing Design Change
Leadership Style
There are several approaches to studying change implementers but the most promising approach has come from transformational leadership since it has been explicitly defined around the concept of change. Transformational leaders operate by the higher-order needs of employees and ‘transform’ individual employees to make them more receptive to, and build capacity for, bringing about organizational change. To accomplish this, leaders articulate a clear vision for the future, foster the acceptance of group goals, communicate high-performance expectations, provide intellectual stimulation, model appropriate behavior, and display supportive leader behavior (Bommer et al, 2005).
Characteristic of transformational leadership is the implicit communication of the leader’s confidence in the employee’s ability to meet high performance expectations. As such, these positive, confidence-instilling actions are generally associated with increased employee self-efficacy and, in turn, trust in the leader. Subsidiarity is also a characteristic of a transformational leader. They are willing to extend the decision-making power to the lowest possible level – to be trusted is to trust (Bommer et. al, 2005).
The Learning Approach
Handy posits that most people do not like change. However, he contends change does not need to cause chaos and does not have to be forced on employees by crisis or calamity. He argues change is a learning opportunity (discovery) and, if approached from this perspective, will encourage employees to become the architects of new ways, new forms, and new ideas. He suggests three ‘lubricants’ that will help employees navigate through change:
- Those who learn best and most, and change most comfortably, are whose who take responsibility for themselves and their future, have a clear view of what they what the future to be, want to make sure that they get it, and believe they can achieve their goals.
- Those who have the ability to see things, problems, situations or people in other ways are able to perceive them as opportunities, not problems. They address these issues directly but have the capacity to reframe them for their benefit and the benefit of the organization.
- Those who have the capacity to live with mistakes and failures without being defeated are those who understand that ‘getting it wrong is part of getting it right” (1990).
The People-Centric Organization
This organizational model has characteristics similar to those found in the transformational leader. The culture of this organization, this theoretical modeling technique, enables executives to build the organization centered on the emotional and psychological needs of individuals. This model recognized that organizations are living, ever-changing and adapting systems organized around its survival strategy. This design model creates structures and processes that link the individuals to the organization producing internal cultural alignment and congruence and is composed of seven interactive, interdependent components:
- the individual or group of individuals who are the decision makers,
- the decision maker’s publicly stated and articulated values and beliefs of the organization,
- the hierarchal structures, reporting relationships, reward systems, and control systems of the organization (organizational design),
- the constraints and demands of the organization’s technologies and processes that determine daily operations and the links that provide the information for the decision maker,
- the interactions between individuals and groups,
- the informal network of friendships, acquaintances, and alliances that link individuals together, and
- the established culture of the organization, the normative set of beliefs of how the organization operates.
A stronger bond between the individual and organization is created when more threads are designed and implemented by the organization to meet employee needs. These threads emerge from the leader as they establish vision, set strategic direction, shape the organizational design, and make decisions as to how much information is available to employees and the degree of individual decision-making allowed (Overholt et. al, no date).
The Danger
In September 1965, the three year TV series Lost in Space launched it’s first episode. Among the cast of interesting personalities was a robot. Its function was to provide technical and informational support to the crew. During the series, the writers chose to formulate a friendship between the robot and the young boy, Will Robinson. Invariably, during every episode, you would see the robot waving its mechanical arms and voicing, “Danger . . . danger, Will Robinson, danger!”
Leaders who choose the status quo / laissez faire approach and ignore the ‘danger’ signs of the continuously changing environment around them do injustice to their organization and their employees. They must learn, as Galbraith posits, that organize is an active verb, it is a continuous event. “Organizational design is a process; it is a continuous process, not a single event. To keep the process continuous and current, a sequence for changing design policies is required. But the right mind-set in leaders (managers) is required” (Galbraith, 2002, p. 154).
In the beginning (Genesis 1:14), God established lights in the heavens to distinguish the day from the night, to serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years. In Exodus, God used Moses and Aaron to give the Pharaoh signs to encourage him to let the Israelites leave Egypt. Pharaoh ignored the warning signs and suffered a great loss. Church leaders and Christian leaders working in a secular environment cannot abdicate this mantle of responsibility, cannot ignore the danger signs of a continuously changing environment as they lead people and organizations.
The Apostle Paul is directed by the Holy Spirit to address the church in Rome concerning living lives of transformation. In Romans 12, verses six through eight, he discusses different giftings God has given. In the latter part of verse eight Paul writes, “if it is leadership to (to which you are called), let him govern diligently (assiduously, conscientiously, thoroughly, carefully, attentively, meticulously)” (NIV). The responsibility to be transformational in leadership is apparent. The potential for loss is too great. “If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously” (Rom. 12:8b NLT).